Tricrossed
by MarginalMary
Summary: Tricrossed: A line between sleeping with the dead and waking with the living. Cross it.
1. A line

IDN own _Bleach._

**Night Mode**.

This tense and person will ring oddly at first. But I hope you'll give it a chance to change your mind, or rather, I hope you will read it with an open mind.

* * *

***Musical Accompaniment: "The Last Man" by Clint Mansell**

* * *

Soon, an hour from now perhaps, you will test the air, feeling life pulse—ebb and flow—around you. You will barely tilt your head in the direction of the second girl's house, waiting for a sign, an invitation that will never come.

Abandoning hopeless expectation, you might take the scenic route, ambling with your hands in your pockets. At war with yourself because you are creepy.

The moon will be bright, turning your hair too white, your eyes too blue. The silver will disappear, the green slipping away in night's stark contrast.

Wishing ineffectually that your feet would find some safer place to roam, you will know they won't. Your life is too dangerous, too volatile, to traverse the high ground.

You're too far gone; the dream is dead. Everyone is pretty sure you killed her.

Not intentionally. But you don't see it that way. You will not ever see it that way.

So, you are not a pure soul anymore, forever tainted, more than shredded. Nearly dead if only a soul could die.

You will never be whole. Perhaps healing will one day be in sight. A cruel tease, never within reach. No. Certainly not ever.

There will always be a little black hole in the landscape, the gravity left behind when the dream imploded.

The world will always be empty without the first girl, the universe void of an essential feature.

So soon enough, your feet—your traitorous feet—will defeat your conscious mind. While lost in blackness, buffeted by unfriendly winds, you will travel mindlessly—as though your feet have sprouted tiny wings.

You will find yourself under a street lamp, gazing up at heedless stars. But the only thing you will really see is a nightlight casting an insubstantial glow on a window pane, soft light spilling out through the second girl's window.

For another hour—but what is time to demigods—you will waste away on the sidewalk, winged feet impatiently shifting your weight.

Your war, the one raping your big brain, will wear you down, will wear you out. The hole in your vision growing larger with each passing second: a dark space cage. The gravity left behind when the dream imploded will suck you in, suck you up to the second girl's window.

Will bend the softly spilling light. The effect warbling the punctured landscape, for a second—just one eternal second—the gold tone light will remind you of the afternoon sun dancing in the first girl's hair. Only one second will undo you. Resistance swallowed by the black hole; never to be seen again.

The tiny wings on your feet will raise you up, alighting on the thin sill with too much ease. You will peer inside this second girl's bedroom, both of your sweaty palms pressed against the pane. Your breath—if you were not so cold—would surely fog the glass.

The second girl, so like the first, will be sleeping. Her tiny nose twitching, a lock of hair tickling her dreams. Her hands will lay as though in prayer, back to back below her sleepy head. In the fetal position, she will sleep, nestled in her covers, the sheets tucked up under her chin.

For moments uncounted, you will wonder what sort of fantastical things exist only in her dreamland. What color are the fairies' wings. If, perhaps, the sky rains ice cream. Does she curl up next to tigers or tell the dinosaurs to behave.

You will wish her dreams are always happy, filled with awe you will never feel. Something precious and rare should never touched with dirty hands, with your sweaty palms.

Thus, the glass—the unfogged glass—will separate she and you forever. You will only ever steal glimpses of her wholesome dreams, her seamless world. Her dreamland and wakingdream which remind you of Momo.

Smiling virgin laughing princess sleeping angel.

But—there will be another girl, a third of which you are unaware, watching you while you stalk the traces of Momo in Yuzu's heart shaped face.

Smirking widow snapping dragon wide-awake warrior.

The third girl will peer at you through the glass, wondering how you're coping. Asking silent questions. How is your health. Do you still wear only black shirts. How are they treating you up there in that place she cannot understand.

Her eyes will trace the lines of your face, counting time passing by the changes she finds there. Years have passed she will conclude. Too many years judging by the way the nightlight illuminates your frown, the lines cut too deep, the shadow too defined. She will scrutinize the sparkle—nearly imperceptible—pooling in your eyes.

Idly, she might think of handkerchiefs, perhaps a tissue. To wipe it all away.

All of it, but mostly the tears you will not let fall. Never let fall.

She will pine away in silence, neither jealous nor unkind.

Because Yuzu is her first girl. Her dream princess.

Karin cannot love her less than you, if what you feel is really love at all.

Not wanting to hurt you, the thought of hurting Yuzu never crossing her mind, the wide-awake warrior will not rise out of bed. She will not approach. She will not intrude upon your creepy vigil.

Instead, while you are busy trying to resurrect a dream, to fashion a patch for the hole with a similar face, Karin will surrender gracefully, closing her eyes.

Tempting her kind of dreams.

Her silver winged fairies will start a game of football, kicking around mint chocolate chip raindrops. Her fierce tigers will rub against her shins like housecats. It's inevitable; she will have to do something about her mischievous dinosaurs.

But before she disappears beneath the warm blanket of her seamless dreams, Karin will count herself lucky to have no black holes, no leftover gravity to suck her awe away.

Eternally blessed to be on Momo and Yuzu's side of the unfogged glass.

* * *

Dedication: **Phil**. _"Art is a personal and sacred thing, inseparable from self. I give away pieces of my soul everyday, written in clever turns of phrase."_

Mare


	2. between

_The second girl will wake, abruptly 15. Suddenly 20. He'll blink and she's 74. _

_He will watch her living Momo's life in fast forward. All the big smiles and transient pleasures reserved for the pure. _

_And he will keep the promise he made Karin in the blink of an eye, a swear he howled from the coldest precipice of his inner hell._

_He will not touch Yuzu._

_The third girl will spend her life sleeping, one day's tediem meshing graclessly into the next. _

_She'll stare out of windows, watching seasons change and people grow old. All the milestones achieved vicariously through others._

_And she will keep the promise she made Toushirou ages ago, a swear she whispered to her heart he managed to steal when she wasn't looking._

_She will not tell Yuzu._


	3. sleeping with the dead

***Musical Accompaniment: "Explosive" by Bond.**

* * *

So, you will think, this is death. How odd.

With no memories lingering in your fuzzy white brain, the inclination to _say something_ will shock you. A personality without a past.

A paradox. You'll muse on it, wry, for years to come.

Wondering why you're _wry _about death and monsters and strawberries. Mostly just strawberries.

Whatever the answer, you _will_ have a personality, a wide range of likes and dislikes, habits and mannerisms, with no connotations. Words will bubble to the surface, bypassing conscious thought, erupting out of your mouth with confidence you don't feel. "Soccer" and "Whatcha-ma-jiggy"

And in moments such as these, your face will crumple into a frown, confused by the stubbornly unfathomable workings of your mind. And a pause in the conversation you're no longer a part of will grow awkward.

You'll be present but not all there.

The people you meet will always look at you oddly when you do this. Apparently, they don't question this glitch in logic as deeply as you do.

But you'll find relief in sleep. An escape from the daily bewilderment quickly branding you as the _exocentric_ of District 10.

Relief but not peace. In your dreams, you'll be someone else, a meandering past and stolen future.

No, not someone _else._ You'll be _more_ yourself.

The relentless confusion will disperse like clouds, revealing the sky as you once saw it. The nebulous unease will solidify, steady as ground beneath your feet.

The sky and the ground—you will recognize them. More familiar to you then you are to yourself.

But in these dreams, there will be something else. Simultaneously entirely other and the essence of your being. An impossible symbiosis more powerful than the awe with which you once regarded the sky; the comfort with which you once regarded the ground.

This _something else_ will not be constant or tangible. It will work on your dreams like time speeding forward, tripping over itself in its haste to show you things.

Working like the Sun progresses. Morning. Noon. Night.

And against the light moving across the awing sky and comfortable ground, you'll watch the vision change, struck dumb by nostalgia.

In the morning, children chase a black and white checkered ball across the dewy grass, kicking it as hard as their little legs can, roaring when it doesn't land in the net, laughing when it does. A stuffed lion drinks milk tea with a snotty redhead and a girl with a bangs and a broom and another girl—someone so important it hurts to look at her. An orange haired scowling boy kicks a man with a white coat and five o'clock shadow through a wall, on which hang a poster of a woman smiling hugely. There's a howling in the background, close enough to hear but not to fear. A nurse's cap, a red jumpsuit, a cockatiel, a monster, Rukia—_wait, who?_ So many black butterflies.

And a dragon flies overhead, suddenly making it snow.

_... but how?_

At noon, the snow becomes rain. It rains so hard, the drops flooding the streets where a girl with honey-toned hair runs across the street, pink umbrella in hand. The high school is holding a dance, the gym decorated with streamers. A clinic with a sign hanging over the door, _"Kurosaki Family Clinic. Attending Physician: Dr. Karin Kurosaki."_ A black haired toddler with Ichi-ni's eyes—_brother?—_peeks out from the closet he's been hiding in; his parents share rueful looks. Christmas cards on the mantle, too many to count, too many smiling faces to name. The howling dims, only an unremarkable echo remains. A red convertible, a wedding invitation, a glass of wine, the color aquamarine. Souls in chains.

And, of course, a dragon. He's just won't go away.

…_?_

At night, the ghost of a sunset throws shadows like the warm blankets in the cupboard under the stairs. There are gravestones—not one, but three—and vases filled with mourning flowers, but it's not sad. Nieces and nephews—only one grandniece—call on the telephone with news. The clock on the wall chimes 6 o'clock, time for meds. The newspaper boy has no aim; a broken window in the kitchen. An empty house filled with other people's things, stuff they left behind. Sour milk, a red handkerchief, a secret diagnosis, needles. A post card reads, "_Having a lovely time on our cruise. 35__th__ anniversary! The time sure does fly. With love, Yuzu and Jinta._" But time doesn't fly fast enough. Not like the black butterflies spiriting away into the sky and disappearing swiftly.

And where is the dragon?

...

Waking, this vivid retelling of your life will only be a blur of things you can almost remember. Ebbing away, slipping beyond your reach. Leaving the lasting impression of a momentous sleep, like rising from the dead.

Like your life might only count as one day in the existence of your soul.

The craving to understand—to regain the parts of yourself which by all rights belong to you—will wake another kind of craving.

You'll begin to hunger, your appetite growing exponentially. Growing in time with the pieces of your dreams you've begun to grab on to.

One kind of hunger will feed the other, more and more of each, helping one another expand. One more pretzel might unravel the mystery of the cockatiel and the dark man with a floral print shirt.

You'll know the memories are all in there, stuffed up behind a glass wall in the corner of your mind. If only you could break it.

Sometimes you will imagine a teasing laugh goading you on when you're one breakthrough away from figuring out your own last name.

"_Names,"_ you'll imagine the teasing voice saying, _"What a topic!"_

Perhaps, you will be crazy.

Everyone else will decide that you are. "That Karin girl," they'll say as you walk by, "Poor thing. She's touched in the head, that one is. Good thing she was born _here_. A harder place would be the death of her." In a low whisper, one of them might add, "_And_ she's the 'hungry' sort, if you get my meaning."

So, you'll wander around aimlessly, your head in the clouds and feet on the ground, eating all the time and living in your dreams, hearing voices—_a _voice. Your tenuous grip on who you _are_ will merge slowly with who you _were_.

And then he will find you, just standing there, all unsurprised like he knew you'd turn up all along.

The ground will fall away. The sky will go black. That powerful _something else_ will still, that voice silent.

Because you'll remember the dragon—_who, how, when, why._

"Yuzu…" You will stop before you've even started.

And he will watch as you flounder, wondering why he's even there. Because you've always been more trouble than you're worth, grinning at anything and laughing when the kids called you, "A grouchy old hag."

He will stare into your face—young once more—remembering things that you'll be remembering at the same time. The reactions will, of course, be different.

Because he'll never have forgotten.

Though he sometimes wishes that he could.

His memory won't desist, a pristine copy of every event in impeccable order. The morning of his life was kind—the first girl was there, her hair in pigtails, talking with her mouth full. High noon was a nightmare, a grotesque parody of his mission in life because he killed his reason for living. And night… was the softer side of oblivion; there was a window—always one window or another—through which he could watch Yuzu, pining away for something solid to keep Momo alive.

And then as he reaches out to catch you before you fall, a strange thought will occur to him. His brain will inevitably come up to a blank space, the ending of the shitty day he's been trapped in.

What comes after night?


	4. and

_The third girl will savor every moment, awake and alive, though she sometimes sleeps and is always dead. _

_And there will be magic in her strange heaven, a blade to slay the darkness. Casting and wielding, she'll know her sword's name._

_But occasionally when Toushirou isn't looking, she will wonder, chin in palm, if her first girl is happy. _

_Because Yuzu isn't coming. _

_He will lose track of time, sleeping like the dead and loathe to greet the day, though he is never late and hardly ever alive. _

_But there will be magic in his strange hell, a girl to wake the Sun. Rising and yielding, he'll know this third girl's name._

_And each time Karin looks away, he will wonder, chin in palm, if his other girls ever made him happy._

_Because they were always leaving._


	5. waking with the living

***Musical Accompaniment: "Return to Innocence" by Enigma.**

* * *

You will sit on the roof of your office, watching the Sun's first rays stretch out bravely to touch your world. Just how long you have been up here won't matter, the concept of time lost on you.

But you _will_ notice her the instant she arrives, the heat haze of her spirit humming in the atmosphere, smoldering no matter how hard she tries to suppress it.

You'll have thought this particular quirk fitting—she will have no more control in death than she had in life.

A fool and a menace. You will have thought of her this way. It's an easy conclusion. The number of times you bail her out of jam ups will number in the trillions. You will know because you count them up and threaten to dock her pay. But you never will.

Because somewhere between finding her meandering and munching on a animal crackers in District 10 and watching her learn to play nice with the other students and the voice in her head at the academy, she will become _someone_ to you. Not an echo of a promise but a living, breathing, almost fully functional human soul.

And then she will start working for you—_under_ you according to the plaque on her desk—but sometimes it will feel like she's working above you. Working _on_ you.

The girl never did and still won't know when she has pressed her advantage beyond its tinsel strength. Hence, when the house of cards she's been constructing out of note cards—note cards for your next captains' meeting—falls on her head, you will not be surprised in the least.

She will be there, always there, asking questions and answering herself. Initially, this absurd habit will suit you just fine. Your people skills will have dulled over the intervening years between the end of your life and the beginning of oblivion. And talking to her while she talks to herself will require little effort on your part, only a word or a "hmm" once every three minutes or so.

Which is good because the world you've been ignoring will seem hell-bent on revenge, requiring too much of your attention.

You will wonder when the color red became so pungent or the scent of freshly laundered sheets so clean. The Sun will seem brighter and the Moon bigger, but how can that be? You will wonder such things, perplexed and wrong footed, while she throws darts at a noticeboard on which you've pinned a reminder that baseball caps violate the uniform code.

And while you are confused by the world in general, these daily one-sided tit-for-tats will confuse everyone else. "Have you seen the new girl? Yeah, the younger Kurosaki," one junior officer will say to another, "Apparently, she's been talking to our Cap, you see? And the other day what's-his-name in Barrack 101—Damn, I can never his name!—right, well anyway, he saw Cap talking _back_. Can you believe that? He was actually talking to someone!"

You will pause, of course, eavesdropping on these gossiping subordinates, not just hearing but _listening_ for the first time in… you won't be able to remember.

Struck by the novelty, the transient interest people take in you, you'll find yourself smirking and thinking of how little interest you take in them. Actually, you will not find yourself smirking, but she will. And the answering smile on her face will be wider than any smile you've ever seen, but you will disregard that errant thought, believing—convincing yourself—that this unusually sunny smile is another symptom of brain atrophy.

The brighter than normal and louder than necessary world will not desist. The weight you've bore for too long will not lessen. The failures and demons haunting you will never go away.

But you will change.

Becoming normal, louder, stronger, confident, and just brave enough to wake.

And she will _still_ always be there, watching and talking to herself pretending to talk to you.

The changes: a step imperceptibly lighter than the last, a joke slightly more funny than the last, one frown less than yesterday.

Just like you'll count her jam ups, she will count these changes in you, writing a report—neater than her usual careless scrawl—to apprise you of the details of "_The (Captain) Restoration Project in Division 10_," another example of her off-color humor.

One day, you will get over yourself just enough to see—not look but _see_—the other souls populating your world. Friends you used to know and new faces who appear to know you.

"Karin, they're everywhere," you will tell her disbelievingly. Then, you will stop, pausing mid-stride, caught up in this moment. A moment of thought in which Karin isn't a _she, it_, or _annoyance._ Just Karin.

And Karin will have stopped as well, though not mid-stride because she's walking on her hands—so a head-stand—caught up in the moment. A moment in which she isn't just the third girl.

More colors, more faces, more sunrises filled with a million thoughts but no feeling of overwhelming dread. The one-sided tit-for-tats will grow, vaguely resembling actual conversations. About the weather and the voice in Karin's head and present and future.

But never the past.

There will be topics outside of the scope, things you will not tell her and things she will not ask. There will be other topics, things she will not tell you and things you will not ask. This divide will go on for too long, until one day the dam breaks, releasing years of weakness unspoken and fears unsaid.

And on this particular day, Karin will walk over to your desk and sit on it, irritating you without even opening her mouth. But when she does open her mouth, irritation will be just about the only thing you aren't feeling.

Karin will say in a tone attempting to be neutral but teetering dangerously on the brink of pain, "Yuzu is here with Jinta. She came to visit me."

"Oh," you will answer, not hearing anything or seeing anything because the Dragon you have not heard from or seen in—you won't remember how long—has dragged you into the coldest inner sanctum conceivable.

But.

It will not be as cold as you remember it. The snow will hold the sunlight differently than it once did a long, _long_ time ago when there was sunshine here to hold.

Now, the snow will embrace the sunlight, dancing with it, throwing rainbows like prisms. And the Dragon you have hated from the moment the first girl fell will rumble, "Do not cross the line again."

Your big brain will not understand, but something deeper, a hunger even Grandma's peach cobbler couldn't satisfy, will reply for you. "I won't."

Those two words will come from inside your snowy Dragon Layer, but they will come out of your mouth in the office where Karin is staring at you fixedly. "You won't what?" she will ask, deciding to let you answer this time instead of inventing an answer for you.

And the hunger will answer for you again. "I won't go. I'll stay here and wait for you."

The words are truer than you know because while she is gone, you will go up to the roof of your office. Sitting up there, you will watch evening come and then night come.

You will watch them end.

And when the Sun's first rays stretch out bravely to touch the world—her world—you will notice Karin the instant she arrives, the heat haze of her spirit humming in the atmosphere, smoldering no matter how hard she tries to suppress it.

You will say nothing, waiting. Waiting and waiting because Karin has been waiting lifetimes for you.

Karin's voice will be sad, full of self doubt and dead, thinking that she's lost ground, just a whisper, "Do you want me to leave you alone?"

But your voice will be stronger, full of awe you thought you'd never feel, clear and seamless like a glass dream.

"No, I don't want you to ever leave."


	6. epilogue: Cross it

**_Somewhere else, two girls cried for no reason at all._**

_They feared the darkest hours before dawn, the line between sleeping with the dead and waking with the living. _

_He crossed the line once and then crossed it once more. Then Karin crossed it for him, meeting him on the other side, bringing her seamless dreams with her.  
_

_ And Karin still dreams happy dreams, a senseless smile on her face, while Toushirou yawns, tracing the curve of her back with one lazy finger. _

_Their bodies catch the moonlight as she sleeps and he wakes, the sheets tangled around their feet. Naked, the fire in her soul making love with the ice in his. _

_And Toushirou wakes happy now, an overawed smile on his face, while Karin turns over throwing an elbow into his chest accidentally on purpose._

_She will never cross the line again, though she would a thousand times over to reach him. But Toushirou won't ever leave her side, her dreams becoming his becoming theirs. _

_They will cherish these darkest hours before dawn, the ending of one night's wonder and the beginning of one day's hope._

**_Somewhere else, two girls will smile for no reason at all._**


	7. Author Note

Dear Readers,

Originally, I wrote the first chapter of _Tricrossed_ as a one shot called "glass dreams." It was horrifying, the darkest fall from grace. I was...

Let me explain first.

In a lot of ways, I write from _within_ a character. There is a quote at the bottom of chapter one, something I told a friend when he asked me why I have an unusually empathic connection to my work. "Art is a personal and sacred thing, inseparable from self. I give away pieces of my soul everyday, written in clever turns of phrase." I remember typing those words and the sudden relief I felt when I had found those words to validate the awe that overcomes me when I read and when I write. The respect I have for the craft and those who practice it truthfully.

So, when writing truthfully, you can harm yourself; you can die with the character and lose something. I wrote "glass dreams" and was haunted by it.

Toushirou was so lost, in so much pain. I cried the whole time I wrote it. And I _crossed the line_ between self and character. This is good, a gift rarely found when you struggle to write as much as I do. I have only felt such a strong bond between my intent and the expression of that intent four times before. Still, "glass dreams" is not a piece I would have chosen to drown myself in because it struck me in a very real way. It mirrored a loss in my own life and the sunless devastation I use writing to escape from.

So, I had no choice really. I had to go back and give Toushirou hope because I needed to believe in the power of redemption for those brave enough to seek it. I started with a vague understanding of what I wanted and took a leap of faith. I knew going in that I would have to pour myself into their souls, to abandon the fear crippling me after I wrote "glass dreams." And I knew that I would write it truthfully; so there was a possibility that I wouldn't find a happy ending. I had butchered Toushirou beyond repair; how could I save him without diminishing the honesty I'd given so much to achieve? I didn't know, and frankly, I was too desperate to care.

I had an idea. Oddly, it was about god, a concept I didn't believe in but maybe I do a little now. Future tense/second point of view is like god's point of view, knowing exactly what people are going to do and knowing what will happen or never happen because of those actions. But we are not without freewill. By changing ourselves, we change the future and thus god's view of our future. It's an abstract concept I had never used, but I needed it now. So, I played god, moving in and out and running forward with a bold conviction of these characters' futures. And as I watched them change, I rewrote their futures. Like forgiveness or reaffirmation, I gave them chances to earn the each other. To be alive again. It's a testament to their natural chemistry because they ran with those opportunities—making choices that remained in character and without pre-planning on my part.

I wrote this story _on the fly_, each chapter without a plan and in one sitting. And I refused to read the story in full until it was finished.

"waking with the living" is the antithesis of "A line" in every way. I felt such joy and triumph, and, as ridiculous as this will sound to you, I cried the entire time I wrote it. More importantly, this ending gave me more than I gave it. I gave away pieces of my soul in clever turns of phrase, and I got a resurrected dream of the power of love and the virtue of bravery. The courage to love and love again and love one more time because you will die if you do not persist in chasing life.

I've read stories like this one, I suppose, though not this short and certainly not in this format or style. I wrote it this way because time is strange and magical when you return to innocence. It's not a single event or one or even a group of conversations. I couldn't achieve my ends with a larger cast or a lot of dialog because the majority of this happened under the surface of the characters. I couldn't do it in first person either because healing, like love, is subconscious until you wake up one day like, "So, yeah. I feel... better."

Yes, it's very short and lacking peripheral elements, but I don't think they would have served any purpose here because it's story about only two people finding their way around two girls who represent the world's attempts to steal idealism and purity. Dialog was minimal on accident. It just didn't happen.

So, thank you for your comments, questions, and compliments. Mostly, thank you for sharing the deeply emotional reactions some of you felt while reading _Tricrossed_. These make me braver, willing to go to those intense places in my soul again.

It's just another thing this story gave to me. Not only did it resurrect a dream; I got to share it. A line from the epilogue says it better than I can: "sharing her dreams becoming his becoming theirs." I have always loved that about the craft. How stories—not words or techniques, but stories themselves—connect people outside of time or place because somewhere at sometime, someone will wonder and feel the same way I do. A communion of souls.

You've been wonderful over the past few weeks, especially those who read the one shot and braved the horror to read it again. After a review I received last night, I read _Tricrossed_ for the first time. I was hopeful at the end, perhaps more so than if I had started it in a brighter place because, in my opinion, the contrast is the only thing that matters. How can the morning be so bright if midnight was not so dark?

Mare

PS: Because I feel braver, I'm considering another story similar to this one. I wrote a one shot called "tin man & scarecrow" which is black and hopeless, perhaps more so than "glass dreams" because the central conflict is steeped in regret rather than loss. It's harder to forgive yourself than it is to forgive the world. However, I think leaving "tin man & scarecrow" as is will achieve nothing more than the proliferation of the "life sucks, so fuck it" mentality I despise. Hence, I'm going to try to save it before it kills someone (probably Shinji). It won't be a sequel per say, but I'm going to use future/second person again. I'm probably going to name it _electrum _(an alloy of gold and silver) which follows the theme of merging the unlikely.

(This is a general response to several reviews and PMs which said in different words the same things: the same questions and comments. So, I thought I would add an author note because there are none in _Tricrossed._)


End file.
